


A Balm For All Needs

by Interrobang



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Tiefling Biology, i have to do everything myself!!, sexy sexy horn touching, where are my horn and tail kink fics!!!!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22111765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Interrobang/pseuds/Interrobang
Summary: Xhorhas is cold, its winds dry in a way that easily chap a person's skin. Each night before bed, Beau watches Jester rub salve into the skin around the base of her horns. One night, Jester asks for her help.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett
Comments: 26
Kudos: 322





	A Balm For All Needs

**Author's Note:**

> Hi my name is Bang I'm a big fuckin monster fucker and there is not nearly enough sexy horn and/or tail touching in this fandom. I'm here to fix that.

Xhorhas’s chill was something Beau wasn’t sure she could ever truly get used to. It was all-encompassing, from the dry winds that whipped her face all the way to the damp nights that led to frost-encased mornings. 

It left a person brittle inside, tense in a way that Beau found deeply unsettling. Even with extra layers to protect her, Beau wasn’t sure she would have willingly stuck around the city if their circumstances didn’t necessitate it. 

Jester, for all her natural resistance to cold, didn’t seem to appreciate it much either. 

“It’s cold,” Jester had whined once as they were walking through the slush-laden streets once afternoon. She turned to Beau, a mischievous grin on her face. “You should hold my hand.” Then she turned to the rest of the group. “Let’s _all_ hold hands!” She wiggled her fingers out as if miming casting a spell, not dropping them until Caduceus had grabbed one and Beau the other. Seemingly content, she then proceeded to swing their hands between them. It was a little awkward-- Caduceus’s height made the arc of their hands quite jerky-- but Beau found she didn’t really mind. Jester’s hand was soft in hers, their tangled fingers warm.

In fact, she maybe minded less than she should, all things considered.

There were other signs that Jester didn’t fare well with the weather. She added several layers to her clothing, including thick leg warmers that went up well past her boots and made her look like she belonged to some kind of avant garde Xhorhassian dance act. There was the heavy-- though still beribboned and cute-- fur-lined cloak that joined her wardrobe. And then there was the grooming.

Each night before bed, Jester took to rubbing her cold-chapped hands, face, and horns with a balm. Beau could smell its soft jasmine aroma wafting from the vanity each night, carefully set there so that it would not get misplaced in Jester’s otherwise quite cluttered side of the room.

She would hum as she worked it into her knuckles, massaging her fingers and the meat of her palms as she did it. Then came the face: a dab of salve on forehead, each cheek, the point of her nose, and lastly a small swipe across her lips before she methodically rubbed it all in, leaving her with a faint healthy glow that made Beau desperately want to lean over and kiss her. 

Worst, however, were the horns. Jester always took special care of her horns. At night she removed the bells and any other jewelry. She’d carefully brush her hair out of the way of them before lightly rubbing the salve into the rough surface.

“Do you really need to do that?” Beau asked one night. “Can you even feel it?”

“Well, not really,” Jester admitted. “At least not the, like, bone part. But it would look weird if I only did the balm on part of it, right? Don’t they look pretty when they’re all shiny?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Beau admitted easily enough. “Yeah. Pretty.” _Like the rest of you_ , she did not say. “So you can feel some of it?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jester said with a sheepish grin. “But it’s, like, _really_ private.” She tilted her head, cheeks coloring even as she waggled her eyebrows. “You’re lucky I’m even letting you watch me put this on. It’s, like, _super_ sexy for tieflings.”

“Oh?” Beau squeaked. She swallowed thickly, clearing her throat before speaking again. “What part?”

Jester’s face colored further, a lovely deep blue that bordered on indigo. She sat up straight, smoothing down her nightgown several times as she seemed to consider what to say. 

“Well…” she ran one finger along the curve of her horn from the tip towards the base, stopping at the part where it seemed to blend into her skin. “Right here is _very_ special for us. When you’re really little you have, like _no_ horns, but they start to come in around puberty?” 

Beau nodded. 

“So, you know, they get _very_ sensitive around then. It kind of hurt a lot of the time when they first started coming in, actually, but the Traveler told me I was going to have _cute_ horns, so I didn’t worry a lot.”

“Did you think you wouldn’t have cute horns?” The _how could you not? All of you is cute._ went unsaid.

“I was afraid I’d have giant honking _minotaur_ horns like Bluud,” Jester admitted in a rush. She looked embarrassed but continued, “Bluud is _very_ handsome and his horns are awesome, but they look heavy and sometimes he can’t fit in doorways and I was really scared.”

“You’d look cute with big horns,” Beau said thoughtfully, tilting her head. “You would definitely have gored someone by now though.”

“Yeah,” Jester said with a grin. “Can’t do that with my pretty curls, though. Too small. Too cute.” She shrugged, then turned back to her balm.

Beau scooted a little closer on her bed. “So what, uh, what does it feel like?”

In the mirror, Jester’s complexion flushed further. Her hand, halfway to the base of one horn with a dollop of balm on it, paused. “Well…” 

“You said it’s… sensitive?” Beau said carefully. “What kind of sensitive?”

A flash of something incomprehensible crossed Jester’s face, and for a moment Beau wondered if she’d gone too far. But when Jester spoke again, it was with a soft voice, as if sharing a secret. 

“Well,” she said slowly. “It’s like…” Her hand fluttered, fingers dropping down to touch the base of her left horn, the balm smoothing over the skin. “I can show you?”

“Sh-show?” Beau stuttered, coughing as she felt herself flush. “You gonna polymorph me into a tiefling too?”

“I don’t think I can turn you into another species,” Jester said with a frown. “No, just come here.” At Beau’s hesitation, she patted her lap and grinned again. “Come _here_ , Beau, I won’t bite you.”

 _What if I ask nicely?_ “Yeah, okay. So what do I have to do?” She stood behind Jester’s seat, staring at the two of them in the mirror. 

“Just--” Jester seemed to consider her words for a second. “Here. It’s easier to show you.” She grabbed Beau’s hand and carefully lifted it up and guided it until Beau loosely wrapped her hand around the ram’s curl of one black horn. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever touched your horns before,” Beau said faintly, her voice feeling far-off and distant. “They’re harder than I expected. Rough.”

“Oh, yeah, _rock_ hard,” Jester laughed. “That’s the bone part-- I think there’s some keratin over it? They can peel if it scrapes too hard, but I don’t really feel it. You gotta touch lower down for that.”

“Like… here?” Beau asked, slowly gliding her fingers down lower, to the join of horn and forehead. “Here, I can get the balm for you--”

As soon as her fingers swiped through the balm over soft, smooth skin, Beau knew she’d made a mistake. Jester’s head fell forward, a soft crooning noise falling from her open lips. Beau froze, her eyes wide. In the mirror, Jester looked like a marionette with its strings cut, limp and loose, her eyes closed.

“S-sorry, uh, I’ll just--” Beau went to remove her hand, but before she could draw it away Jester’s hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. 

“No!” Jester was flushed positively purple. “I mean, uh, it’s fine, it’s _totally_ fine, that didn’t feel weird at _all._ You can totally keep doing it.”

Beau squinted at her. “You’re sure? Looked kind of, uh, _intense.”_

Jester tittered nervously, one hand coming up to tuck a lock of hair behind one blue-flushed ear. “A little,” she admitted. “Not bad. My Momma used to rub lotion in for me when I was little. I didn’t have horns but I had little bumps, you know? And they would get all chapped.”

“So… it’s okay? I’m helping?” Beau asked carefully. 

Jester nodded slightly, gently tilting her head into Beau’s touch. “You can do it again,” she said softly. 

Beau hesitated for all of five seconds before gently rubbing her fingers over the soft skin again. Jester’s reaction was immediate, but not as effusive as before: she sighed and tilted her head back until she was leaning heavily against Beau’s stomach, eyes fluttering closed. Beau could just barely see down the low neckline of her nightgown at this angle, Jester’s chest rising and falling in little hitches as Beau gently massaged the balm into her skin.

“I’m not… hurting you?” Beau asked as she continued to gently rub the oily paste into Jester’s horn.

“No,” Jester moan, voice rough and almost slurred. “Feels good, Beau.”

So Beau continued. Under her hands Jester’s skin was smooth, thin over the base of her horn. It was hellishly hot, almost as if Jester had a fever, but when Beau let her fingers trail down a little further the skin returned to normal temperature. As she trailed her fingers back up she traced the shape of the horn’s base over Jester’s skin. 

“This is fine?” Beau asked. “Can I, uh, touch harder? I feel like I can’t really rub it in like this.”

“Oh, yeah, you should do that,” Jester said almost dreamily. She squirmed lightly in her seat, wiggling further back so she could press her back against Beau’s front. “Mmm, use your nails.”

Beau gulped, but did as asked. She lightly scritched the base of Jester’s horn before digging the pads of her finger into Jester’s horn base, pressing down hard enough that she was sure she felt a light pulse of blood under her touch. Jester’s mouth dropped open, her hands closing to fists on where they lay on her lap. 

Some inkling of a pattern dawned on Beau. Jester looked absolutely blissed out like this: eyes closed but zigzagging back and forth under her lids, one fang digging into her bottom lip. Her back was straight, almost to the point of painful rigidity, as she seemed to be fighting the urge to wriggle happily against her makeshift masseuse. 

Not daring to speak, Beau brought her other hand up to grab Jester’s other horn. Luckily there was still some residue of balm on this side, and Beau used it to her full advantage. Deciding to move before she could second-guess herself, Beau gripped both of Jester’s horns in full, fingers digging into the thin skin around the base of them. Aided by the balm, her movements were slick and smooth, as if Beau was just trying to give a really firm scalp massage.

But Jester’s reactions were so much better than a standard massage. 

The tiefling immediately jumped, mouth dropping open as a small, broken sound escaped her throat. Her hands shifted from fists to open fingers in a flash, sinking between her clamped thighs like she was afraid she would lose control of them if she did not trap them there. She pressed her head into Beau’s hands, panting quietly the longer Beau pressed.

Now _this_ Beau knew how to do. 

“Is it nice, Jes?” Beau murmured. She slowed her fingers’ touches, instead choosing to caress the thin skin with just her fingertips, short nails drawing thin lines across the surface. Under her, Jester shivered, a quiet hum-- bordering on a moan-- low in her throat. “What should I do?”

“Just--” Jester shook again, shoulders trembling with the tension held in them. “More rubbing?”

“You got it.” Beau dug her thumbs into the back side, the side curled closest to her skull as the horns curled backwards. Here the skin was damp with sweat, the fine hairs edging up near them soft under Beau’s fingers. The ridge of skin and bone was firm and hot under her hands, and Jester nearly quaked when Beau pushed into the little gap between horn and skull. 

“Oh--!” Jester jumped again, one hand flying up to cover her mouth. The other pressed more firmly between her thighs, bunching her nightgown in her fist.

“Feels good?”

“It’s--” Jester moaned quietly, then laughed as if surprised at herself. Her cheeks were a deep bluish purple, almost indigo with what Beau hoped was desire. When she opened her eyes Beau could barely see her irises, so dilated were her pupils. “It’s like when someone gives you a really _really_ good massage, and they get a knot out, and when the knot kind of falls apart there’s this little rush? But this is _all_ rush.” 

“O-oh,” Beau breathed. Her hands tightened around the tiefling’s horns again, rubbing more insistently now. Jester moaned again, her chest heaving with each gulping breath. She held herself taut in Beau’s grip. The hand between her thighs inched higher, until Beau could barely see it because of how deep in the fabric of Jester’s nightgown it was. Jester’s legs had fallen open at some point. Beau was fairly sure she was grinding against the heel of her hand.

“Do you need, uh, more?” Beau tried. “I can get more balm--”

“No!” Jester all but sobbed. “Just keep--” She shuddered as Beau dug her nails in again, the drying balm leaving a rougher texture. 

Apprehensive but sure that Jester knew what she was talking about, Beau continued rubbing her horns, fingering the delicate skin around the join of horn and forehead until the balm all but dried up, leaving an almost velvety texture behind. Jester moaned and leaned more fully against her the longer it went on, not-so-subtly wiggling against her seat and her own hand.

Beau got an idea. She almost hesitated, but Jester looked so-- look _so--_

Before she could stop herself Beau leaned down and kissed Jester’s forehead. A gentle gesture, one she’d done dozens of times. Jester was free with her affections-- had made Beau the same way, at least when it came to her best friend. What they did not usually do, however, was involve their teeth in the action.

The second Beau’s blunt teeth scraped over the delicate skin at the base of Jester’s horn, Jester moaned long and loud, shuddering and gasping as she shook, muscles tense and thighs quaking. Suddenly arching her back like she’d been struck by lightning, she cried out, one hand flying out behind her to grip the back of Beau’s skull. 

Beau blinked as she was abruptly yanked away, her hands batted off of Jester’s head with surprising strength. 

“Beau!” Jester’s eyes flashed as she turned, “That was--”

“Sorry!” Beau burst out before Jester could tell her off. “I’m-- uh-- it won’t happen again--”

Jester’s hands shot out, grasping Beau’s face. Her lips pursed determinedly, her eyes darting over Beau’s face. 

“You kissed me,” she said breathlessly.

“Was that not okay?” Beau asked weakly. “You looked like you were enjoying yourself--”

“Oh, I _definitely_ was,” Jester grinned, albeit shakily. Her tail lashed behind her for a moment before Beau felt it curl around her ankle. 

“And…?” Beau prompted. Her heart wiggled from its position lodged in her throat. 

“And I think you should kiss me again.” She frowned. “Or I should kiss you? We’re going to kiss.”

It was gentler than Beau expected. Jester fell against her like an incoming tide, soft in her nightgown and warm under Beau’s hands. She hummed happily when Beau tangled one hand in her hair, giggling and then shuddering when Beau tried to put her hand back on the place that had made Jester fall apart.

“Too much,” Jester whispered against her lips, pulling Beau’s hand away. “That was-- whew-- intense.”

“Better than the books?”

Jester’s eyes sparkled. “ _So_ much better than the books, Beau, way way _way_ better.” She pressed another flutter of light kisses against Beau’s lips and cheeks. She backed away, looking up shyly. Beau noted that despite Jester’s demeanor her tail was still gripping Beau’s ankle. 

“Way way _way_ better, huh?” Beau said with a gentle laugh, one corner of her mouth quirking upwards. 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Jester said effusively. Her tail tightened on Beau’s ankle as she pressed even closer, hands sliding down from Beau’s face to settle on her waist. She pressed up on her tip-toes to whisper in Beau’s ear:

“Can I return the favor?”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @GoInterrobang on Twitter. Go there if you want to see what I'm writing next. Sometimes I even post polls to help me decide what to work on!


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